VS Naipaul on the late Jan Carew: "A mulatto from Guiana, a tall and handsome man with pretensions to be a writer." Jan Carew on Naipaul in London, in the early 1950s: "We would do broadcasts at the BBC and then go to a pub nearby. Vidia was a very good companion, very witty. Cruel wit. Some West Indians used to work at the back of the kitchen at the BBC cafeteria. He called them “the blackroom boys”. He had an underlying sense of compassion for the less well-off West Indians in London, which later he was accused of not having. People of my generation spoke about race in a way that was full of jokes; there was no animus, we would joke about each other’s background – race and class. Vidia didn’t hold himself apart."

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